Scars and Strength
by prplemyth
Summary: Written for a tumblr prompt by an anon, Percy notices suddenly that, after the Giant War, Annabeth got toned. And strong. And hot. Really hot. Percabeth oneshot. Rated M for a reason, but it's not quite a PWP. I hope you enjoy!


_A/N: Prompted by a kind anon, this fic is basically based on the idea that Annabeth has to be ripped and incredibly strong due to her demigod training, and that Percy's also really attracted to her incredibly hot body. Another warning is that this is rated M for a reason! A big reason! I hope you enjoy the fic!_

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Once they were home, once the Giant War was over, once the world went back to normal, Percy starts noticing something about Annabeth he'd never spotted before: his girlfriend was RIPPED.

Not like normal people call themselves "ripped," though. Her muscles weren't huge and she didn't go around showing them off. But they were there. And since she'd been working with broadswords, one particular summer when the two of them were turning twenty, she became even more toned, stronger -

Hotter.

He started finding himself staring at her a little bit, his breath catching in his throat whenever her shirt rucks up accidentally while she's fighting and her abs show. That's the most insane part, actually. Percy's got abs - he's very proud of them - but Annabeth's have, like, lines. And they're new, like somehow as she's gotten older she managed to get even more muscle, and she's also filled out in other ways.

These ways are particularly clear to him when they're sparring one day, and Annabeth's been complaining about the heat to the point where she ripped off her shirt and was fighting just in her sports bra. It's not an easy day for Percy, as there are multiple obvious reasons for why his shorts keep getting tighter and tighter.

And, for once, he's not even slightly able to fight against her. Recently, her power and skill has (and he'd never admit this to anyone else) surpassed his, but usually he does at least a little bit better than this.

"Percy," grumbles Annabeth as she's got him flat on his back with her sword to his throat for the third time that day, "you keep staring at me. What's wrong?"

He tries to focus on her eyes instead of her toned, tanned skin, but his resolve fails and he replies with , "Hot."

"You're hot?" she asks, frowning. Rolling off of him and pressing her wrist to his forehead, she furrows her eyebrows. "You don't feel warm. I think you're -"

Percy interrupts her. "Seriously?" he asks. "That's what you think I'm talking about?"

Annabeth stares at him. "What else would you be talking about?" For a split second he thinks she's screwing with him, and then it hits him: Annabeth doesn't see herself as hot. It feels a bit like a brick's hitting him in the face when he realizes that his stunning girlfriend doesn't get that she is, in fact, stunning.

"This is a weird experience," he laughs, "you're the one confused for once."

Annabeth glares half-heartedly. "Just tell me what's hot, you weirdo."

He sighs and brushes a hand up and down Annabeth's side. "I was talking about you."

He watches as those grey eyes search him for the joke, for the punchline, and grins as the recognition sets in that he isn't joking.

"Oh, gods, you weirdo," she laughs, standing up and grabbing her sword again. "Do you think you could keep it in your pants for a little longer than –" she glances at her watch, "ten hours?"

"I blame you," he says as he stands up, "you're the one who did that thing with your mouth last night and then you wore the –"

"Okay!" It's Annabeth's turn to interrupt him and she looks around the camp, breathing a sigh of relief to see they're alone. "Percy, remember the whole not-in-public rule." But she knows she's getting a flush across her cheeks of the memories of the night before, as Percy ran his fingers across her stomach and up to her chest. She shivers involuntarily, and Percy shoots her a look.

"We're doing The Plan again, aren't we," she says, failing to hide a smile.

Percy nods. "Oh yeah we are." In a flash, Annabeth's shoving her Yankee's cap onto her head and trails her fingers down Percy's back, brushing over his former Achilles' stop. He shivers violently and tries to think about crying puppies to keep himself from losing it before he can get into his cabin.

They're luck this time – since they're in college, most of the kids younger than them are still at school. Other than Clarisse, Rachel, Chris, none of their friends are even ready to come back.

If they were just a little bit lucky, this would go off without a hitch.

He counts to five after his window moves open on its own, and then walks into the cabin as fast as he can.

"Slow down a bit, killer," giggles Annabeth invisibly from some part of the cabin. And suddenly her hands are on his back, stroking up and down and touching his Achilles' spot each time.

Percy moans quietly once and then turns around, unable to keep it in.

"You do not get to be invisible this time, Annabeth," he says, and he gropes around in the air until he grabs onto the brim of her hat and pulls it off, tossing it to the floor. "Besides, I want to be able to see you – all of you."

Annabeth blushes under her disheveled hair and, suddenly, Percy realizes she looks uncomfortable. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"You've been staring at me a lot lately, like something's weird or different."

"There is something different," Percy replies, "you got even stronger, especially since we were done with the Giant War. You've got, like, definition and stuff now that we're not starving in Tartarus and stressed out all the time." He glances at her abs again. "And you've, uh," he coughs, "you've got a really hot stomach."

Annabeth looks down at herself and pokes at her abs, tightening them. "Huh," she says, "you're right."

"What did you think I'd been looking at?"

She meets his eyes tentatively. "The scars."

As if a magnet, Percy's eyes move to Annabeth's body. There's the scar from Kelli the _empousa_ in Tartarus, where she had cut three deep scars from her right shoulder across to her collarbone. There's the scar from Ethan Nakamura's knife, the scar that saved Percy's life, on the top of the left shoulder, some of the damaged, poisoned scar tissue reaching down toward her chest. There's the massive, jagged sword slash across her stomach, reaching almost to her bellybutton where the arai cursed her in honor of the many monsters she'd attacked over her many years.

They only made her more beautiful to Percy.

"See?" she replies quietly. "It's all anyone can stare at."

"That's not why they stare, Annabeth," he says. He steps toward her and runs his fingertips across Kelli's scar, and Annabeth flinches a little under his touch. "They stare because you're strong. And you're beautiful. And when you get really into something your eyes do this cool thing where they get darker and they sparkle a little." She smiles, and Percy takes it as a reason to keep going. "And your hair looks awesome even when you've been on a quest," Percy presses a kiss to the scar on her arm, pressing kisses along it as he moves her arm around his neck. "You're so smart and you wear your intelligence like a badge whenever you're talking about what you love." He brushes his hand across her taut stomach and the scars. "And your scars are just proof of how awesome you are and how many times you've saved everyone's ass."

Percy presses a firm kiss to her lips, and she sighs against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "You really believe all that?" Annabeth murmurs as he starts pressing kisses to the stab wound's scar.

"Of course I do, you're beautiful," he breathes against her skin, "I'll never stop believing it."

He can feel Annabeth staring at him for a moment, and he breaks away from her to meet her eyes. "You're too…" Her sentence trails off, and she crashes against him, throwing him off balance for a second as their lips meet and she steadies them both. He laughs against her lips as she's pushing up his shirt, and they break the kiss for a second so she can pull his shirt off. She runs her hands across his chest, his stomach, down his arms.

"For the record," says Annabeth, kissing against his neck, "I think you're beautiful too."

"Beautiful?" Percy asks. "I'm beautiful?"

Annabeth rolls her eyes, and gets this smile on her face that lights some sort of fire in Percy's chest, a fire more intense than the one that's been burning since she had taken off her shirt earlier. She continues, and this time she's ranting. "And handsome and hot and, gods, can we just make out again? You're making my brain all fuzzy."

Percy grins and pulls her close again. "I love it when I can do that to you."

The kisses turn more intense, lips parting and gasping against each other until Percy finds himself stumbling onto the bed. He falls, and takes Annabeth with him, still locked in a kiss.

He begins fumbling behind Annabeth's back to unhook her sports bra, and she breaks away from his lips to laugh.

"Okay, kelp brain, it unhooks in the front." She sits up a little, her legs locked around his hips, and unclasps it, throwing it somewhere in Percy's messy cabin. She probably won't find it for the next couple of weeks, but Percy can't care because she's mostly naked and the most beautiful thing he'll ever see and, gods, she's his, and he'll always be hers. And then she's talking and he's lost and he blinks a few times.

"I will never get over the way you look at me," she murmurs, "I kind of like that look on your face." She kisses him, and he gasps as he feels her chest against his. He's pretty sure he'll never be used to this, used to her, and he loves it.

He rolls Annabeth over until she's on her back, and threads his fingers through her hair, kissing her like there's no end to one and beginning to the other. "Percy, I –"

"Shh," he whispers as he kisses the scars across her collarbone, "I feel like proving to you how much I love your body."

"Coming from anyone else," says Annabeth, "that would sound kind of objectifying, but from you, it's somehow the exact opposite."

"Because I fell in love with your brain first," Percy replies. "Now stop talking so I can make you scream."

Percy smiles against the top of her breast as she shivers as his words, and he makes his way down her body, taking a pert nipple into his mouth, and Annabeth gasps as he rolls the other one in his fingers.

"Oh, sweet fuck," she moans.

When he laughs against her, trying to keep down the reaction in his pants when he hears her swearing, she moans a little louder, and Percy, somewhere in the back of his hazy mind, is a little worried she could be overheard.

As his hand moves below her waist to undo the button to her shorts and the other dips below the waistband and she gasps his name over and over like a prayer, he decides he doesn't care.

Something happens and the two of them are suddenly entirely naked, and Annabeth's on top now, rolling on the condom with her eyes locked on his. Oh, gods, this girl was going to kill him and it was going to be the best death ever.

"Are you ready?" she asks, hovering above him. He nods, gasping out a, "yes, definitely," distracted by her. Percy can't exactly complain – he's got a great view.

"You're staring again, Percy," she laughs as she settles on top of him. He'd respond, but his vision's gone white as she begins to rock back and forth. He can hear her sigh and it brings his vision back because, really, there's no way he wants to miss this.

They move together and, gods, they've gotten so much better at this than the first time. They know each others' bodies almost as well as they know each other's minds, and it blows his mind every single damned time. She's gasping above him, and he's mildly aware of how they're both muttering nonsense intertwined with the other's name, but he's too focused on how their eyes are locked, at the feel of her surrounding him, and at how her hair's gotten long enough to drape across his chest as they move together.

Then something new happens – Annabeth's twisting in a way that's way different than before, and he gasps. "Gods," he groans, sounding desperate even to his own ears, "how are you good at everything?"

She rolls her hips in another way that's new and draws out a new sound he's never heard himself make. "I don't know," she says, leaning down to kiss him, "it's a character flaw."

"Flaw?" he replies, holding tightly onto her as he rolls her underneath him. "Flaw, my ass. This might be my favorite of all of your talents." He reaches his hand between them and makes it to the bundle of nerves, and can tell Annabeth's fighting to pay attention. But he knows with a few, practiced moves, he'll have her out of control.

"I thought my tutoring skills were – " Percy grins as she interrupts herself as she screams, way louder than appropriate, but so worth any weird looks they'll get later.

"I'm good at this?" she gasps, coming down but still moving against him. "What about you?" She gives him a look and he knows she's about to say something that'll make him lose control. Sometimes he hates how much she knows his mind, but in these situations it's one of the best parts. Her voice drops to a whisper as she moves to whisper in his ear, "You're fucking amazing."

That did it. Something about the look in her eyes when she swears, when she makes that step to curse, when she doesn't care about the words that are coming out of her mouth, it makes him lose it every time.

He calls her name, again too loudly, as he comes and Annabeth strokes his hair as his head drops to her chest and he gasps until his head can stop spinning.

"Gods, I love you," he groans, rolling off of her to let her breathe, "you're perfect, you're gorgeous…" He keeps talking as he pulls her in next to him, knowing he's rambling but unable to stop. There's too much to say to her, too much he loves about her, and he doesn't know how to stop. He doesn't know why he should.

"Percy," whispers Annabeth, rolling over to press a gentle kiss to his lips, "I love you too."

He sighs and feels that bubbling joy in his heart, and she smiles back at him.

Yep. He is never going to get used to this.


End file.
